Category Archives: Litigation

Earlier this week, the National Football League (NFL) released the 2017 Health and Safety Report, which highlights progress under the Play Smart. Play Safe. initiative, as well as other NFL player health and safety efforts. The digital report—featuring a wide variety of interactive content—can be found here: https://annualreport.playsmartplaysafe.com/.

“Outlined in this year’s report is a demonstration of our ongoing efforts to both learn and do more,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a letter introducing the 2017 NFL Health and Safety Report. “We will continue to seek solutions to ensure our entire football family and all those who love to play the game are provided with the best information, tools and support to protect their health and well-being.”

Published four weeks ago, here’s the table of contents for October 2017 Concussion Litigation Reporter, here’s the Table of Contents of that issue, which, as always, features “timely reporting on developments and legal strategies at the intersection of sports and concussions—articles that benefit practicing attorneys who may be pursuing a claim or defending a client:”

The NFL’s Head Injury Research and the Law: An Overview of Liability under the Voluntary Undertaking Doctrine

When Football Players Suffer from Concussions, Who Is Responsible?

Third Circuit Affirms Lower Court, Denying Relief to Parents of Concussed Football Player

Hockey Enforcer Unsuccessful at District Court, Appeals to Seventh Circuit

Researchers Identify Possible Biomarker for Diagnosing CTE During Life

Controversy Stirs as Youth Football Coach Is Suspended for Reinserting Player

People who play contact sports show changes to their brain structure and function, with sports that have greater risk of body contact showing greater effects on the brain, a new study has found.

Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital performed preseason brain scans of 65 varsity athletes — 23 from collision sports (with routine, purposeful body-to-body contact), 22 from contact sports (where contact is allowed, but is not an integral part of the game) and 20 from non-contact sports.

They found that the athletes in collision and contact sports had differences in brain structure, function and chemical markers typically associated with brain injury, compared to athletes in non-contact sports.

Their findings were published online today in the journal Frontiers of Neurology.

Lead author Dr. Nathan Churchill, a post-doctoral fellow in St. Michael’s Neuroscience Research Program, said there was growing concern about how participation in contact sports may affect the brain.

Most of the research in this area has focused on the long-term effects for athletes in collision sports, such as football and ice hockey, where players may be exposed to hundreds of impacts in a single season. Less is known about the consequences of participating in contact sports where body-to-body contact is permitted, but is not purposeful, such as soccer, basketball and field hockey.

This study looked at both men and women from a variety of sports, and found progressive differences between the brains of athletes in non-contact, contact and collision sports.

This included differences in the structure of the brain’s white matter — the fibre tracts that connect different parts of the brain and allow them to communicate with one another. Athletes in sports with higher levels of contact also showed signs of reduced communication between brain areas and decreased activity, particularly within areas involved in vision and motor function, compared to those in non-contact sports, such as volleyball.

However, these differences do not reflect significantly impaired day-to-day functioning, said Dr. Tom Schweizer, head of the Neuroscience Research Program and a co-author of the paper, noting that the athletes in this study did not report significant health problems and were all active varsity athletes.

He said this study fills an important gap in understanding how contact affects healthy brains, as a step toward better understanding why a small number of athletes in contact sports show negative long-term health consequences.